Proenza Schouler pre-opened New York Fashion Week. This was a smart move: the spring-summer 2025 collection would have a really hard time fighting for attention in the midst of all other shows and presentations that are coming up in New York this week. Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough don’t play around with gimmicks, and they are in a continuous process of stripping down anything superfluous about their brand. But the problem is the minimalism they are pursuing for spring feels so generic and safe it could easily be a COS or Arket runway. The clothes looked good – especially the over-sized shirt-dresses and slouchy tailoring – but they were bare of feelings a high fashion brand like PS should spark. Also, I’m not sure who the Proenza Schouler woman is, especially when she’s wearing all these 2015-ish stripes and fringes.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Spencer Phipps knows that there’s no better person than him to promote his own brand. If you follow him on Instagram, then you’re guided daily by him on how to wear and style his very versatile clothes. You might be even subscribing to his YouTube channel, where he candidly discusses what’s like being a designer and owner of an independent business in our modern age (not easy, that’s for sure). So to appear in his brand’s autumn-winter 2024 lookbook was quite a natural step. These very persuasive and authentic, self-styled self-portraits are actually brilliant. Phipps doesn’t build his garments around far-fetched inspirations, but around people, “characters“, that exist in the collective imagination of the roads less traveled in America. Except that these people and their stories are not made up, but very much real. “Fringe characters” is how Phipps describes them. “It’s all very American Midwest-oriented,” he explained. “We have people living off grid, bikers, the weird old man; basically everyone I’m charmed by,” the designer said. Here and there, the designer is holding a Phipps branded ax, a chainsaw, animal crackers, and even a Phipps branded newspaper. All the props work perfectly with his signature, luxe fleeces, cargo pants and vintage-induced tailoring. And of course, the shearling chaps.
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I never really cared about what’s going on at Coach, but the resort 2025 lookbook has sparked my interest. Finally, a brand in New York that fills the blank space that Raf Simons left after creating the ambitious – and sadly aborted – Calvin Klein 205W39NYC project. Stuart Vevers similarly plays with the codes of Americana in a loveworn, weathered, and lived in way, with bits of cinematic, even horror-y drama. Vevers’s rather winter-ish resort collection is stuffed nostalgia-tinged fuzzy-soft cozy cable knits and full tweedy skirts with huge taffeta bows, rocking a Victoriana-goes-1950s vibe. Note how the oversized Argyle check knit polo shirts are designed to layer up at will, one of the many pieces in Vevers’ line-up denuded of gender specificity. Likewise the jewelry: diamanté bows and chandelier earrings to pin here, there, and everywhere, and single earrings with a delightfully kitschy quality to them – pumpkins, candy canes, essentially the John Waters-approved inventory of holiday tree decorations. For layering up with those sweaters Vevers suggests a ratty tee emblazoned with Popeye; it was inspired by a black and white image of Debbie Harry back in the day wearing a t-shirt with the pipe smoking, spinach loving cartoon character. Popeye isn’t the only pop cultural icon in play here as the designer was also looking at images of Twin Peaks stars Madchen Amick and Lara Flynn Boyle between takes, in their homespun, 1950s-esque looks warped by David Lynch.
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This week started with a sensational Marc Jacobs fashion show in New York. The designer is in such a great creative place right now: he doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone, doesn’t engage in New York Fashion Week, and just creates at his own pace some of the finest work in his career. As he wrote in the latest collection’s powerful note, “we use fashion to embrace bold and courageous self-expression to articulate and showcase our inner selves, allowing us to freely explore and display our thoughts, desires, and identities in a deeper pursuit of joy, beauty and personal transformation“. This isn’t another press release talk; this absolutely and truthfully sums up not only Marc’s work and contribution to fashion, but himself.
The show lasted just six minutes. Jacobs fancies this short, sharp-shock format, starkly contrasting to his past, excessive outings that featured entire runway productions. This “less is more” approach really gives so much more – intensely more. On the runway, a mosaic of all-time American symbols, hyperbolised and exaggerated as if they were Claes Oldenburg sculptures: Marilyn Monroe in her iconic subway grate dress from “The Seven Year Itch“, Minnie Mouse in her red and white polka dots (they also felt very Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist Marc collaborated with at Louis Vuitton), and princess gowns out of a fairy tale. Hyper-pop and vivacious: a bold act of resistance towards all the socio-political disasters going on in the world – and especially, in the U.S.? Maybe. But maybe the designer wanted to rebelliously commit himself to pure joy. And then you had the yellow polka dot bikini, several sizes too big. The proportions in this collection were distorted to perfection. The miniskirts’ ultra-short lengths, and the arcing hemlines of knee-length skirts, especially when they were higher in front than in the back, made models look like giants. “The future remains unwritten,” the designer concluded in his note. And maybe that’s a good thing?
How about some of my beloved pieces from past Jacobs’ Runway collections?
What I love about Rosie Assoulin is the fact she doesn’t follow trends and always does her own, distinct, joyful thing at her namesake brand. There’s just so much radiance and optimism in her clothes, and they also please with their day-to-night versatility. Her resort 2025 offering is “light and unserious, but with real construction, and subtle fabrics,” she said. “We are trying to still appeal to our luxury tastes, but with a more approachable, lighthearted feeling.” That ethos is encapsulated in the tangerine, floral-print column “Banana” dress affixed with two padded crescents at the neckline and hanging off the shoulder. Or in the entrance-making flamenco-inspired number with a vibrantly ruffled hem. It’s intriguing how Assoulin effortlessly matches (and clashes) gingham checks in canary-yellow and turquoise with florals in contrasting colours; not many designers would pull it off so gracefully. No wonder why: the New York-based designer is a colorist of the ranks of Dries Van Noten and Alber Elbaz. Her unique approach to garment-construction is phenomenally reflected in the beige, ruffled midi-skirt that opens the collection and in the same-colour peplum top with striped cuffs and collar; its hourglass shape resembles vintage jugs and vases that have a cameo throughout the lookbook. And this takes us to the theme of home that often inspires Rosie in her work. “The home is a very interesting place for me. Domestic life feels very rich: what are the things we’re surrounding ourselves with, wanting to surround ourselves with? It feels like a philosophy for us“, she summed up.
Garden parties and summer occasions ahead, I’ve got you covered with some amazing pieces by Rosie Assoulin you can shop now!
Design & Culture by Ed 